The Pillow Burlesque Show
by Tozz
Summary: "I dance naked all the time!" Now it's Nick's turn not to knock. Based off Naked. Jess/Nick.


More Jess/Nick goofiness. I might do one more one-shot. It's kind of addicting.

x x x

Jess was doing the singing thing again.

It wasn't that big of a deal. Well, it was kind of a big deal, seeing as how only stark raving loonies sing _all the time_, especially when those songs are made-up ones about what they're doing, like eating a bowl of ice cream or getting onto the elevator or looking for the TV remote.

But it wasn't a big deal in the sense that it didn't grate on his nerves quite so much anymore. It was slowly becoming the kind of annoying you could tune out, like bizarre, high-pitched background music. Hardly even noticeable. Most of the time.

Tonight, however, was a special night for Nick. A rare night to have the living room all to himself, to watch embarrassing sappy medical dramas with the remote already programmed to switch to some manly documentary reality show about chasing tornadoes, in the event that anyone were to walk in on him, though there wasn't much chance of that. Schmidt was working late at the office and Winston and Jess were off in their bedrooms, Winston doing whatever Winston did, and Jess, well, singing.

In other words, everything was perfect—except for the singing. It was like this little tinny buzzing gnat, wailing on and on and on, somehow at just the right pitch to cancel the sound of the TV so he couldn't hear anything. God. He switched channels, just in case, and got up to go give her a piece of his mind.

As he started down the hallway, he recognized the song as that stupid theme song she'd made up for herself. _Who's that girl, who's that girl_—it's freaking Jess, who else would it be, shut up already. There was something different about the way she was singing it this time, though, and it made him slow down as he approached her door.

Now, after the incident with Jamaican music and him dancing naked in his room and Jess barging in and seeing him dancing naked in his room, he'd thrown a huge fit about boundaries. Just normal decent stuff, like knocking on doors. Nothing too demanding, but it was a rule Jess clearly needed to have emblazoned in her mind, hopefully to the point where it overwrote what she'd giggle-screamed at. She might've described his "penist" as "stately," but he wasn't buying it.

However, for all his lectures about privacy, he found himself hovering in front of her door, just standing there, listening, not knocking. Her voice was all low and sultry, dragging every syllable. _Whoo's thaaat girrrl, whooo's thaaat girrrl._ The door wasn't shut all the way—there was a good three inches between the frame and the door itself. A maximum of one inch constituted knocking he decided, and slowly, quietly, pushed the door open a little more, craning his neck so he could see inside.

She was naked. She faced her full-length mirror, holding a pillow in front of her body to cover all the important bits, wiggling her backside around, still singing that song. She was acting like one of those burlesque girls, he realized, with the pillow and the wiggling and her voice like that.

_I dance naked all the time,_ she'd told him when she was trying to comfort him about his own private hobby. He hadn't put much thought into it—hadn't taken her seriously. But now, seeing it…

Well, it was kind of hot.

Then she dropped the pillow, started running her hands down her body, starting at the shoulders, and that was when Nick forced himself to look away. He turned and pressed himself against the wall in the hallway. His mouth was hanging open. He shut it. Then he realized she'd stopped singing.

"Hello? Someone there?" he heard her say, first in a cautious, serious tone, and then, when no one replied, in one of her funny accents so it sounded more like _'Ello? Sumwan theyah?_

He stayed silent, and then finally, the singing started up again. He stayed there, no longer there to snoop. Now he was trying to recover.

But then he heard her voice crack, once, then twice, and then, he realized with horror, she'd begun to cry.

Oh God. Now what? He crept down to the end of the hall as quietly as he could, then stomped back towards her room to make it seem like he'd just gotten there.

"Hey, Jess," he said loudly before he reached the door, "I wanted to ask you—oh, are you okay?" He stayed outside the door, waiting.

"Yes," came her sniffling reply.

"You don't sound okay."

"Well, I am."

"I don't think you are, though."

"What would you know about it, Mr. Tornado Show Watcher Guy?"

"What does that have to do with—never mind. Can I come in?"

"Yes. No! Wait." He heard her scurry to the door and push it closed. There was shuffling sounds, and a minute later the door opened again. She stood there, her hair a little disheveled but fully dressed. Her eyes were all red, almost to watching-Dirty-Dancing-for-at-least-the-third-time-in-one-day red. This was bad.

"You may come in, sir," she said, in her best Alfred the butler imitation, which was actually terrible.

He followed her inside, where she plopped down on the bed and he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, between her and the doorway. He tried not to think about how she'd been standing right in this very spot moments ago, naked—tried not to look in the full length mirror, or see the discarded pillow on the floor.

"You seem upset. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know, maybe," she sighed, picking up the pillow and hugging it to her chest.

"Is this about Spencer?" he ventured. He had a hunch.

She lowered her eyes. "I guess. I guess I was just thinking about some stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Like…why we broke up."

"Oh, Jess."

"I just feel so unattractive!" She dropped the pillow back on the floor and fell back on the bed, now staring up at the ceiling. Her voice got a little wobbly as she spoke. "I never told you guys this, because it's way too embarrassing, but the day that Spencer and I broke up, when I caught him cheating… I'd shown up to our place naked."

Nick swallowed. "Naked?"

"Not like, totally. I had this trench coat on, and it was actually really uncomfortable when I was in the cab, because it sort of chafed, and it just—well, anyway, so I show up and I take the coat off and I'm dancing around like an idiot with this pillow, singing my theme song, and he's there, and then the other girl shows up and I'm just standing there, naked. Oh my God, it was the most embarrassing moment of my life."

He didn't say anything, and neither did she. Not until she propped herself up with her elbows and gave him a shy smile. "Other than maybe that time I walked in on you when you were dancing naked. Remember that?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," he said, gritting his teeth. "You don't have to say 'that time.' It was a week ago."

She lay back down on the bed. "Anyway, so I guess I was just thinking about how it doesn't really matter if I dance or do whatever, I'm just not good at being sexy."

"Oh, come on."

"What?"

"Don't say that."

"But it's true."

"No, it isn't."

"What would you know about it, Mr. Tornado Show—"

"Enough already. It's like what you said to me at the wedding, letting it go and all that. You should follow your own advice. You don't need your ex-boyfriend's approval to be sexy."

She pressed her lips together and then nodded. "You're right. Or I guess _I'm_ right. It's just hard to listen to yourself, you know?" She switched to a little impromptu song: "Do as I say, not as I do."

"So you're good?" he interrupted, before she could get any farther.

"Yup. Thanks, Nick."

"Great. No problem." He turned to go, but she stopped him. Dang. He knew it had been too easy.

"Wait."

"Yeah?"

"There's some advice I think _you_ should follow…"

He raised his eyebrows and leaned against the door frame. "Okay, sure. What is it?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but… You're kind of a mouth breather."

"Excuse me?"

"A mouth breather. You know." She gestured with a circular motion to her own mouth. "Sometimes you breathe. With your mouth open. Like this." She started panting.

"I do not!"

"Yes you do."

"I don't."

"Oh, you so do."

"When? When am I doing all this mouth breathing?"

"All the time! You'll just be, you know, like standing there, and your mouth's hanging open, and you're breathing, and sometimes it's not all that noticeable, but I know you don't realize it, so I thought you should know. I'm trying to be a friend, Nick."

"I am not a mouth breather."

"You are! I mean, sometimes…" She chewed her lip, getting a nervous but mischievous look on her face. "I'll hear you in the hallway… Right outside my room… And I forgot to close the door all the way… and I was singing…"

"Wait, wait, wait!" he blurted, suddenly panic-stricken. "Stop! I can't hear you. I don't hear what you're saying. I can't, over all this mouth breathing I'm doing. I should go."

"I was singing," she repeated, "and you saw me, and I was totally nak—"

"I have to go! I can't hear you! Can't stop mouth breathing!"

He ran from the room and dived onto the sofa once he'd reached the living room, panting, yes, doing that goddamn mouth breathing. He turned up the volume of the television and tried very hard to pretend he hadn't heard her call after him, with her voice all singsongy and full of mirth, "I know it was you, Nick! You mouth breather! I know you saw me!"

x x x


End file.
